Issues and tensions in the history of speech therapy told from its standardizing documents

Abstract

Introduction: Speech therapy is a young profession, but its regulation, however, is the result of a long process, started a few decades earlier. Several documents leave marks of this trajectory and tell stories of the issues and tensions present at the time of their preparation. Objectives: To discuss the issue of the autonomy of Speech Therapy professionals based on the analysis of some of their standardizing documents, considering two significant moments: a) the change from technologist to higher education professional, in 1981 and b) the threat of loss of rights in occasion of the processing of the Medical Act Bill, in 2001. Method: Documentary, exploratory, qualitative research. Results: The word diagnosis appears implicitly in the text of Law 6965/81 and in the first Code of Ethics, in 1984, and explicitly, as a speech therapist competence, in the codes of 1995 and 2004. The word autonomy does not appear in the Law nor in the 1984 code. It is mentioned in a restricted way in the 1995 code and only referred to as broad professional autonomy in the 2004 code. Conclusion: Analyzing the issues and tensions present in the preparation of normative documents for a profession allows us to highlight the set of values, power disputes and the ethical and political character present in these definitions. It also allows us to understand how dynamic and incessant these processes are and, also, how much some situations arise in the present time, rescuing old debates.